Benjamin Sonnenberg Jr.

Originally published in the Britannica Book of the Year.Presented as archival content.

Last Updated:

7-13-2010

Benjamin Sonnenberg Jr. , (born Dec. 30, 1936, New York, N.Y.—died June 24, 2010, New York City) American magazine editor who founded (1981) the quarterly literary magazine Grand Street, which gained enormous prestige despite a readership that never exceeded 5,000. He guided the magazine on the basis of his personal tastes and a European aesthetic of nonacademic intellectualism, publishing poems, articles, and stories by such authors as British poet Ted Hughes, Canadian short-story writer Alice Munro, Canadian critic Northrop Frye, and American poet W.S. Merwin. Sonnenberg, who never completed high school and was self-educated, funded the magazine from the sale of the Gramercy Park ... (100 of 187 words)